BACKGROUND As egg production and offspring care are costly, females should invest resources adaptively into their eggs to optimize current offspring quality and their own lifetime reproductive success. Parasite infections can influence maternal investment decisions due to their multiple negative physiological effects. The act of preening--applying oils with anti-microbial properties to feathers...

This experiment studied the effect of four calcium (3.0, 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5%) and four available phosphorus levels (0.25, 0.30, 0.35, and 0.40%) in the diet of semi-heavy commercial layers after molting. Hisex Brown layers between 90 and 108 weeks of age were distributed in a completely randomized experimental design with a 4x4 factorial arrangement with 16 treatments of five replicates of eight...

—Understanding factors that determine sources of nutrients for reproduction is vital to interpreting different lifehistory strategies used among species, within species, and among taxa. We used stable carbon isotope analysis (δ13C) to compare the relative use of endogenous and exogenous nutrients during egg synthesis between two species of geese, Canada Geese (Branta canadensis interior) and Le...

The subgroup J of ALV (ALV-J) has emerged as an important pathogen of meat-type chickens since1989. This virus is responsible for economic losses due to both mortality and depressed performance inchickens. So, the objective of this study is the detection of ALV-J in the albumen of commercial and nativefowl eggs using RT-PCR. Three hundred and seventy egg albumens were randomly selected from dif...

The influence of calcium source (limestone and oyster shell) and particle size (<0.1 mm; 0.85 to 2 mm) on laying performance, egg quality, and bone properties were examined in laying ducks by a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments. Longyan females (288) with similar BW at 24 wk of age were randomly allotted into 4 treatments, each with 6 replicates of 12 individually caged birds and studied...

T.R. Morris Department of Agriculture and Horticulture, University of Reading, England Striking improvements in the efficiency of egg production have been achieved in many countries, with the result that eggs are cheap and the market is saturated. In these circumstances, the emphasis shifts from quantity to quality, though what is meant by quality differs considerably from place to place. Some ...

The study was conducted to determine the absorption of essential and non-essential trace minerals from poultry feed products. Poultry feed, liver, muscles, egg samples were collected six farms in Rawalpindi Islamabad. Mercury, Lead, Cadmium, Chromium, Iron analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrophotometer. Iron, Chromium exceeded permissible limits set by World Health...

An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of dietary inclusion of Mycofix Select (Biomin GmbH, Herzogenburg, Austria) on discrete egg parameters and quality characteristics of hens fed mycotoxin-contaminated diets (aflatoxin; AFLA) and deoxynivalenol (DON)) during a 10-wk trial. A 4 × 2 factorial design was used with 4 contamination levels: control, low (0.5 mg/kg of AFLA + 1.0 mg/kg ...